Mike Glennon is a "player to watch" for the Maxwell Award, even though he has yet to start his first college game

The preseason watch lists for every college football award imaginable have been released during the past week or so.

It’s a process that offers an interesting look ahead to the upcoming season while giving fans something to debate while they sweat out the month or so that still remains before the opening of fall camp.

But let’s face it, they hold about as much significance as a Presidential straw poll 16 months before the next actual election.

Proof of that was provided last week by the list of hopefuls designated as players to watch for the Maxwell Award, symbolic of the national Player of the Year.

Most of the usual suspects were included in the group – Andrew Luck of Stanford, Kellen Moore of Boise State, Landry Jones of Oklahoma. One name, however, jumped off the page for N.C. State fans and others around the ACC.
And it wasn’t Russell Wilson, who will be playing his football at Wisconsin this season.

Rather, it was his replacement Mike Glennon.

Clearly someone at the Maxwell Football Club in Philadelphia has been drinking the Wolfpack red Kool Ade being served up by State coach Tom O’Brien since he named Glennon as his starter in April. Either that or the list was put together by a group of NBA general managers.

Because while Glennon might have all the size, physical skills and “upside” needed to develop into one of the most celebrated quarterbacks in college football, the fact of the matter is that he hasn’t done anything to prove himself other than lighting up his own defense in State’s last two spring games.

The 6-foot-6, 217-pound junior has thrown just 39 career passes in games that count, completing 24 for 248 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. And the first snap he takes as the Wolfpack’s starter against Liberty on Sept. 3 will be his first a college football starter.

To assume he’ll step right in and immediately become one of top performers in America – with a wide receiving corps that is just as inexperienced as he is – would be like flying to Vegas, playing the roulette wheel and betting your entire monthly paycheck on No. 8.

The payoff might be big. But the odds wouldn’t be in your favor.

Wilson

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a kid who already has enough to worry about with the specter of his predecessor following him everywhere he goes on and off the field.

Fair or not, Glennon’s success or failure this season is going to be judged directly against how Wilson does in leading his new team at Wisconsin. The two might just as well be joined at the hip, even though they are totally different quarterbacks in every way – from size and style to personality and experience.

Things might have been different had Wilson not been so noncommittal between returning for his final season of college football eligibility and concentrating on a fledgling baseball career in the Colorado Rockies farm system.

O'Brien

By hemming and hawing for as long as he did, he forced O’Brien into making a decision of his own. And that decision was to look to the future with Glennon, a quarterback he recruited three years ago specifically to become the cornerstone of his building effort with the Wolfpack.

Perhaps that’s the reason the normally reserved State coach been so uncharacteristically lavish in his public expressions of praise for his new field leader. Or maybe he’s simply trying to convince himself that he made the right choice and is doing whatever he can to build up Glennon’s confidence.

Either way, the Wolfpack’s ability to build upon last year’s nine-win season and become a legitimate Atlantic Division contender rests largely on Glennon’s ability to handle the pressure intensified by all the preseason attention he’s getting.

That in itself will make him a player to watch this season, whether he turns out to be a candidate for an award or not.

I was confused about the point of this article and how one could relate Mike Glennon being on the Maxwell Watch List (along with 65 other offensive players and former Eagles QB “Jaws” being one of the selection members along with others in NFL organizations or scouting positions) to Tom O’Brien’s decision to give Russel Wilson the opportunity to transfer for his final year of eligibility.

The organization’s web site states “The watch list candidates have been chosen by the Maxwell Football Club’s selection committee, evaluating past performance and future potential.” — I don’t think he has any chance of winning the award but I do think he has the potential to become a good even not better than good QB. That is all they are saying by having him on the watch list.

Then as I ran through the other 65 names/university the mystery behind the confusing link to RW/TOB became crystal clear.

I agree with the premise that it seems far-fetched for someone who has never started a college game to be on the list, but to be fair, for comparison, last year’s winner Cam Newton had never started a game in Division 1 either. Plus, just peeking at last year’s list (which didn’t include Newton), I saw at least two first time starters on the list in John Brantley and Dayne Crist, so there is some precedent.